An Outsider’s Gaze at Kaki Bakar: Contesting and Engaging Malaysian Identities, Gender-Roles and Traditions
Kaki Bakarrevolves around the
strenuous story of survival of a Javanese man, his Malaysian wife and their two
sons and two daughters as they move from one kampong to another struggling not
merely to make ends meet but to reconcile their seemingly obscured place within
the socio-cultural structures of the mid-1990s Malaysia. Exhibiting masculine
preponderance and preeminent regard for his cultural roots and experience as a
freedom fighter during Indonesia’s War for Independence, Kakangfiercely battles
alienation of himself and his whole family by means of setting fires as act of retribution
as well as rebellion. His actions nevertheless result over and over again to
the banishment of his family, the loss of their livelihood, the interruptions
in their life and the children’s education, and the need start “new life”
constantly. In this highly tensed narrative, his son, Kesuma/Kusuma, is the
only character who appears to comprehend or even applaud his father’s decision
to burn the storehouses of those whom he, Kakang, perceives as “oppressor” or
“enemy” – but Kesumahimself has to also battle within himself whether it is
morally right for him to support and defend his father. In the end, Kesumamakes
a decision to oppose his father and end the cycle of disruptions and misery by
disclosing his father’s unscrupulous plan to the landowner – a regrettable
decision that eventually caused his father’s life. The film finally closes with
a dark, sinister frame where Kesuma is seen weeping and running back to their
home while at the same time wrestling to convince himself that his father was
right, that he loved them dearly, and that he was a brave soldier, a Captain
and that the people around them, which alludes to the greater Malaysian society,
are all hypocrites, weak and lazy.
Created initially out of a
foreign source, that is William
Faulkner’s Barn Burning, interpreted
and appropriated by a Malaysian filmmaker
who spent more than a decade away from the confines of his Malaysian homeland, shot within the geographical milieu of Malaysia, before being casted out of the
country and being denied access to the primary target audience, the film is in
itself a conspicuous embodiment of the schizophrenic socio-political processes
at work within decolonized Malaysia.[1]I surmise, in my review, that Kaki Bakar, as foremost a cultural
product and secondarily a work of art, epitomizes the contestation and
negotiation of the social realities of theMalaysiansociety.
This paper argues that a closer look inside the cinematic frames of Kaki Bakar bares three dilemmas that
encapsulate three spheres of contestations evident in Malaysiatoday– these are the dilemma of gender roles, the dilemma
of identity, and the dilemma of social inequalities.
The first dilemma is
depicted through a concurrence of two narratives revealing two forces that
characterize gender relation issues in Malaysia.
On one hand,the central character, Kakangsymbolizes
the power and authority of the father. Arguably an indication of the Javanese
notion of Bapakism -Kakang dominates
his family (shouting orders to his children and wife and expecting their absolute
obedience), he makes all significant decisions on the matters concerning the
welfare of his family (he chooses not to send the children to school regardless
of his wife’s appeals, he determines when to move and where to settle), and he
assumes the key position as the primary provider for his family.On the other
hand, simultaneous with the narrative of male dominance are the subnarrativesof women asserting power (as
well as children/anak asserting
power) – Kakang’swife who resisted
when he was about to burn Tuan Kassim’s
storehouse, the female servant who reprimanded Kakangwhen he dirtied the floor that she had just wiped clean,Tuan Kassim’swife who condescendingly
sent Kakangaway without even asking
what he came there for, and Kesuma
who fought hard to stop his father from burning another storehouse.
These images of women/children
antagonizing, defying and interrogating the status of men highlights that even
in a seemingly patriarchal Malaysian society,
female voices are not unheard of and that there are attempts to break down the
ascendancy of men.What is indeed interesting is that the persistent clash of
these scenes, Iconstrue, depicts the contemporary clash of gender relations in
the Malaysian society.[2]
The traditional roles of men and women, their place in the society and the
rights and privileges attached to them are being contested and questioned as
evidenced by amendment of the Federal Constitution to advocate gender equality
in 2001, the introduction of an administrative regulationrecognizing women’s
signature in their children’s documents as legal, as well as the enduring
clamour to combat violence against women, uphold immigration rights and
citizenship privileges of Malaysian women.[3]U-Wei
captures these clashing forces at play and subsumes them within a single
narrative that provides cohesion while retaining disarray. As such, I maintain that the film itself serves as both a testament and
a social critique to the volatility of gender-roles in Malaysia.
The second dilemma
accentuates the perils of identity in Malaysia.
This is portrayed, in one level, as a process of defining the Self(in this case, Kakangas a Javanese) in
sharp contrast with the Other (which
pertains to thekampong members asMalays).U-Wei artfully juxtaposes Kakang’stight grip to his Javanese
heritage, as well as his effort to pass on to his children, particularly to Kesuma, the proud, brave and noble
tradition of the Javanese, and his
contempt against the Malays whom he
described repeatedly as a “weak people, hypocrites,ungrateful and ignorant of
their origins.” In one scene, Kakang
confronts his sonKesuma whom he
believed has weakened his resolve and almost revealed hiscrimes to TokEmpat during a kampong meeting. Kakangthen
slaps Kesumaand asks him “Where is the Javanese in you?” It wasa compelling
statement that stresses the centrality of identity in the narrative – i.e. the
centrality of identity in Malaysian society.
U-Wei was able to elicit from the character of Kakanga mixture of intense emotions of anger, frustration and derision
as Kakang explains to his son the
difference between the Javanese, a
fearless people who fought and won their freedom,and Malay, a bunch of pathetic people. The dichotomy between two
identities depicted in the film mirrors the ethnic competition that
characterizes present Malaysiaas
evidenced by the persistent issue of which ethnic group controls power and the
material resources of the country and the critical question of who owns the
country and what are the symbols of Malaysian
national identity.[4]Hence, the film serves as U-Wei’s attack
against the perpetuation of a type of society and politics in Malaysia that cut across, even
stratified along, ethnic lines.
Out of this friction between
who and what is Javanese or Malay, emerges the third dilemma
presented in the film – a critique of the social inequalities in the
post-colonial Malaysia. U-Wei
cunningly represents the difference between the marginalized Javanese and the affluent
Malay elite. On one hand, he depicted Kakangand
his family in an almost anarchic saga for survival as transitory drifters,
landless, low-paying plantation workers, who barely own anything except for an
old truck that serves as the only means that aid their sojourns. On the other
hand, there was an evident prominence of the Malays as seen in Tuan Kassimand
his wife’s characters – they own a big house, large tracts of land, cars,
expensive carpets and, as hinted in one scene, has more than enough money to
squander in sumptuous feasts and parties. These sharp portrayals appear to be
U-Wei’s ways to expose as much as to revile the enduring inequalities in
economic and political opportunities in Malaysia.
U-Wei ingeniously disparages the Malay
eliteby means of lambasting them as people who are lethargic and waits on
the “subsidy money.”
Made at a period
characterized by Mahathir’s rigorous efforts in transforming Malaysian economy from an agricultural
estate exporting raw materials to a modern and industrialized nation under the
New Economic Policy – there was an the increase in new commercial
opportunities, influx of large foreign direct investments and the state’s bold
economic initiatives, the film captures the reality that the benefits that Malaysia was reaping out of their robust
economic development were not equally felt and enjoyed by the whole population.[5] In
a way, U-Wei contends with the social and economic inequalities that persist in
Malaysia reflecting how the NEP, as
an icon of Malay-ness, placed the Malays at the forefront of Malaysia’s economic development and
modernization, the expansion ofMalay representation
in working and middle class, the focus on giving education to the Malays that resulted to the increase in
their participation in white-collar occupations.[6]In the end, the film reinforces itself as a
milieu of contestation and negotiation and an advocacy to expose the
socio-economic ills of Malaysia.
The last point I would
like to put forward has to do with the narrative of the film itself. As aforementioned, it is based on a foreign novel
and was adapted and appropriated by U-Wei to fit within the context of Malaysia – and in the process of doing
so he claimed the story for himself.[7]
Note that the filmmaker spent more than a decade in New York, thus, some argue
that he was “uprooted” and “divorced” from Malaysia,
before going back to create his movies inside his homeland.[8]The
entire film was shot in Malaysia but
it was banned in the country, and eventually found audience in foreign lands –
and was received very well.This paradoxical, almost sardonic experience of the
film of being a foreign borrowed,
appropriated at home by someone who was originally home but eventually became an outsider
inside the home, as a finished
product was ostracized at home until
finally finding a new home outside - Ipostulate,
is a seamless epitome of the existence of the polemics of culture and identity.
The narrative of the film reflects
how Malaysia is striving to come into
terms with defining the lines and borders of the constructions of Malaysian-ness and how the complex process
is enmeshed with political decisions (as proven by the censorship/banning of
the film).As the film struggles to portray Malaysia,
issues on race, religion, gender and socio-economic predicaments come into
play yet the depictions remain untenable due to the heterogeneity of the
society itself. Overall, the film is significant precisely as it attempts to
capture such perennial clash.
[1]The film Kaki Bakar(The
Arsonist) was directed by U-Wei bin Haji Saari and was screened in 1995 at the
Cannes Film Festival. It was also awarded as the Best International Film at the
Brussels Grand Prix on the same year. SBS attempted to screen the movie for
television but it was banned. William Van Der Heide, Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film: Border Crossings and National Cultures, (Amsterdam:
Amsterdam University Press, 2000), p. 106.
[2] Issues on gender justice as discussed in Norani Othman, et. al., Sharing the Nation: Faith, Difference, Power
and the State 50 Years after Merdeka(Malaysia: Strategic Information and
Research Development Centre, 2008), p. 39-42; Helen Ting, “Gender Discourse in
Malay Politics: Old Wine in New Bottle?” in Edmund Terence Gomez (ed.), Politics in Malaysia: The Malay Dimension, (London:
Routledge, 2007), pp. 75 – 106. More specific case was the NingBaizura
controversy as scrutinized in Farish Noor, The
Other Malaysia: Writings on Malaysia’a Subaltern History, (Kuala Lumpur:
Silverfish Books, 2002), pp. 262 – 267.
[3]Malaysian women married to non-Malaysian men cannot confer
citizenship to their kids; similarly non-Malaysian men married to Malaysian
women cannot be granted permanent citizenship; both rights are given to
Malaysian. Ivy Josiah, “There are no Human Rights without Women’s Rights.” In Asia Society.http://asiasociety.org/policy/social-issues/women-and-gender/there-are-no-human-rights-without-womens-rights. Date Accessed: January 24, 2012.
[4]Harold Crouch, Government and
Society in Malaysia, (United States: Cornell University Press, 1996), p.
155; See also: Abdul RazakBaginda, “Setting the Stage for Malay Scholars to
Excel” in Malaysia in Transition:
Politics and Society, (London: ASEAN Academic Press, 2003), pp. 72 – 80;
[5]Crouch., p. 181; Othman, p. 13.
[6]Crouch., pp. 187 - 188.
[7]Interview by Ben Slater, “Saari, I’ll do it my way” in Time Out Singapore, http://www.timeoutsingapore.com/film/feature/u-wei-bin-haji-saari-indie-malaysian-filmmaker, Date Accessed: January 24, 2012.
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